The present invention relates to the field of robotic insertion systems for the insertion of electrical components into circuit boards, and more particularly to an improved tube magazine feeder capable of adapting to a variety of tube magazine sizes.
Robotic systems are commonly used to insert electrical components into circuit boards. These systems automate the process of "stuffing" boards with electrical components. Typically a system will include a robot which picks a component up at a pickup station and then inserts it at a predetermined location in a circuit board.
Many types of electrical components are delivered by the component manufacturer to the board fabricator in tube magazines. For example, tube magazines are commonly used to store and ship dual inline package (DIP) components. The components are removed from the tube magazines prior to pick up by the robot.
There are available on the market today tube magazine feeder devices which hold a plurality of tube magazine in a stacked relationship, and unload the components in the lowermost tube onto a component track for delivery to the pickup station. After a tube is emptied, it is ejected from the feeder device and the next loaded magazine drops into the unloading position.
One disadvantage of these known feeder devices is that they are constructed to receive only one size of tube magazine, i.e., the device handles only one particular type of electrical component. This severely limits the utility of the device, since if the need arises to insert a different type of component stored in a different sized tube magazine, one must replace the entire feeder unit with a different tube magazine feeder. Such a solution to this problem is capital and space intensive, and moreover tends to limit the usefulness of the component insertion system or line.
It is therefore a principle object of the invention to provide a tube magazine feeder which may be adapted to handle a variety of component and tube magazine sizes.